The Future: even in our scientifically advanced society, it is still a daunting prospect. As we enter the 21st century (and I refuse to believe it will be via a bridge, especially not one built by some pasty Arkansas cracker with a predilection for oral sex), we will have access to many wonderful things. Lightning fast pornography and cloned supermodels are merely two examples.
Yet, we will still have no way to see into the future. Alas, we are forced to speculate (not to be confused with a similar sounding word) on the nature of 21st century life. I will begin with something I heard from Professor Ken Jowitt of our Political Science department: “Sit the fuck down you lazy, late arriving pricks who were dumb enough to buy my book even though it’s just my lecture notes with a fancy cover!” Wait, oops, that’s not the right quote. He argued that the post Cold War period would be a Genesis environment, “one in which territorial, ideological, and issue boundaries are attenuated, unclear, and confusing.” It is interesting to note that these three adjectives perfectly describe the professor’s writing style. But I digress. In the future we will be faced with the task of “naming and bounding” this new environment. This is incredibly insightful, although the term Genesis is grossly misused. The Sega Genesis, though a quality gaming system for its time, is now completely obsolete. However, I realize that the esteemed Professor has little time to spend studying video game trends given his other commitments: learning to walk as pompously as he talks, and preparing lectures that hundreds of ass-kissing second semester freshmen will receive with thunderous applause (yet all the while missing the point: that they are all pathetic sheep who will roast in blazing hellfire for getting to Wheeler at 9:41).
Let’s take Jowitt’s idea seriously for a moment. We need drastic changes in the way we name things in order to secure a firm hold on our future. First off, what’s up with people’s names? I know this is a touchy subject, but I call on each of you to resist creating some fucked up name for your child. Don’t combine your name with your spouse’s no matter how enticing it sounds. Imagine if I, Luke, marry a girl named Pam. Our child would be forced to live his/her entire tormented existence as a “Lam.” See the injustice there? Just do what my parents did and name your child after a character in the Star Wars Trilogy.
Music is another important category. Band names are spiraling out of control into the land of the absurd. For every truly ingenious name (e.g. the Seattle grunge rockers named after the spreadable preserves extracted from an oyster’s jewel) you get a meaningless fusion of random words (unless you think it’s really possible to fly a temple made of stone). A friend actually insisted we change the name of our summertime band to “Anal Meatloaf.” The only solution to this madness is to keep it simple and give every band a number. Now you must be wondering, “Why all this pent up frustration over such trivial things?” Or perhaps you’re just wondering “What’s for dinner and how will it effect the size and consistency of my next bowel movement?” I can answer the latter simply – garbanzo bean stew/ large and sticky. The former requires knowing me personally, an endeavor I suggest you approach with great caution. So what is my vision of the future? Well, I can’t say for all you retards, but I only hope I’ll be sitting in a nice house, listening to song No.8 by 4613 and spending time with my son: Yoda.
